


The Way of the Ninja

by Me_aGlorifiedPigeon



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Backstory, Burns, Canon Rewrite, Drowning, Fire Powers, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Social Pariah Kai, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29284053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Me_aGlorifiedPigeon/pseuds/Me_aGlorifiedPigeon
Summary: All Kai has in the world is Nya, up until he loses her. He's not about to let that stand, but what can one boy with a fuse as short as the space between his eyelashes do?(An au where I do whatever I want!)
Relationships: Kai & Nya (Ninjago)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	The Way of the Ninja

Jiang Kai stood between the two police officers on the front step of the Ignacia foster home, his face throbbing and his sleeves burnt to the elbows. There was a third officer, Officer Hou, at the door, slamming his fist on it.

"Lin Jiao!" Hou shouted. Kai noticed the other kids looking curiously at him through the window, and he felt shame color his cheeks. He saw his little sister, Nya, and the disappointment in her face. His stomach twisted.

The door finally creaked open, and Miss Lin's eyes were drawn directly to Kai. She sighed heavily, taking in his ashen covered figure and the state his clothes were in.

"What did he damage this time, Officer Hou?" Miss Lin asked.

"Lin, you know I loved his family just as much as you did, but that's no reason to be so- so _lenient_ with the boy! He's burnt down another storage shed! An entire winter of trade stock, up in flames!" Officer Hou spat. Miss Lin winced. Kai scowled at the allusion to his father. He was almost _sixteen_ \- surely they could finally stop comparing him to his father now.

"It is not about missing his father. Kai can't control the fire," Miss Lin huffed. "I won't punish any of the children for something they cannot help."

"Well, _make him_ control it!" Officer Hou growled.

"Maybe if your son would stop _bullying_ him, Kai wouldn't flare up so much!" Miss Lin snapped, and the other kids at the windows gasped. Officer Hou slammed a fist into the doorframe and Miss Lin jerked back, holding the door between them and looking at the police officer as though he were a threat. Kai could feel heat under his skin, the familiar feeling of the fire in his blood.

"My son is the victim here, not _Jiang Kai_. You keep a better handle on the freak, and if he so much as singes another hair on my son, I will see him drowned," Officer Hou spat. Miss Lin stiffened. Kai himself could feel his heart racing.

"He's a _child_!" She cried.

"He's a _monster_!" Officer Hou sneered. He turned and jerked his head. The policemen shoved Kai to the ground against the porch steps, and followed their boss off. Miss Lin knelt down to check on Kai, her hands gentle on his face and shoulders.

"Oh my," Miss Lin murmured, her fingers grazing the throbbing bruises on Kai's face. "Who did this?"

"Hou Tao," Kai muttered. "He punched me for calling him elitist."

"Kai, you get yourself into too much trouble," Miss Lin sighed. She helped him to his feet and led him inside. "I'll get something to bring down the swelling."

Kai settled on a stool in the main room of the orphanage. Immediately, the other kids flocked to him.

"Whoa, that's a shiner!" Qian Ah chuckled, flipping her dark hair over one shoulder. She covered her right eye where Kai assumed the bruise must be. "My name is Kai! I'm grumpy and I set fire to the rice last week!"

The other kids laughed. Ah turned to him, eyes shining with delight. She had a pretty smile. "Did you give him as pretty a mark as he gave you?"

"You know what happens when I try to fight back," Kai said. Ah and a few other kids grimaced, remembering the horrible burn scars that had been left on the stomach of the last person Kai had tried to fight. Kai felt his heart sinking as the other kids began to disperse, throwing him wary glances like he might set off again. Ah lingered the longest, but she quickly left the room too, climbing the stairs and very pointedly not looking at him.

Nya sat down on the floor beside her big brother, resting her head on his knees. She smiled at him as warmly as she could manage, though her eyes still shone with concern. "Hiya, doof."

"Hi," Kai muttered, pushing her away as he curled his knees towards his chest and hugged them close.

"They're all just jealous," Nya declared, and Kai looked at her with a blank expression. She nodded.

"Yeah, they're _super_ jealous. You get to do cool stuff that they can't ever do! That's why Hou junior keeps bullying you," Nya continued. "Because everyone knows you're the coolest around."

"Yeah? Cooler than you, Miss Inventor?" Kai deflected. He'd prefer to talk about anything else. Really.

Nya hummed, pretending to think. "Nah, you're right, I'm way cooler."

Kai laughed, as Miss Lin came back with a small rag bundled around a few ice cubes. She smiled down at the siblings. "Keeping each other out of trouble?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Nya declared, trying to keep the mood light as Kai's smile died. He appreciated her attempt. Miss Lin sighed.

"Kai," Miss Lin began, kneeling down in front of the siblings and offering the ice. Kai huffed and accepted it, holding it to his face.

"Are you going to try to lecture me again?" Kai demanded. Miss Lin frowned and he suddenly felt like he was being unfair to her. She'd known the Jiang children since they were born. Their father was a dear friend of hers, so she'd told them all about him. A talented blacksmith, a brave warrior. A wonderful friend. She always told Kai he was a bit like him. Sometimes he hated it.

Sometimes he wanted to be just like him so badly that it ached. He had memories of him… a strong jaw, and a steady arm. A laugh. Enough of a memory to miss him, but not enough to remember him. He envied Nya, who never seemed to miss their parents a bit. At least not in the personal way that he did, only in the nebulous way that their roommates did.

"Not this time," Miss Lin sighed. "You've heard everything I have to say."

Kai had. _Control your temper_ , she would say. _Be careful of your surroundings_ , she would say. _Don't let those boys corner you again_. And most importantly, _if you catch anything on fire no one will care what happened, only what gets burned_.

It was all true, but it didn't make it any less aggravating. Or terrifying. His thoughts turned back to the words the police officer had said. Drowned. He'd be drowned like a feral and uncontrollable animal if he flared up again. Kai didn't want to die for something he couldn't control. The heat under his skin negated the icy chill he felt at the idea, but he shivered anyhow.

"Kai, calm down," Nya whispered, and her hand slipped into his free one. He glanced at her and then noticed that his shoulders were smoking. He took a deep breath, but the embers on his shoulders only grew. Kai panicked as flames traveled down his arms, and he dropped his sister's hand.

"Kai-!"

"Nya, go get a glass of water for your brother," Miss Lin interrupted. Nya looked like she wanted to argue, but with one last look at her brother, she stood up and made her way to the kitchen. Miss Lin turned to Kai and grabbed the rag filled with ice, pressing it against his arms and dousing the flames carefully.

"Sorry. I… I don't want to die, Miss Lin," Kai said, and his eyes watered as the words tumbled out. Without Nya there, he couldn't stop himself from being terrified. "I wish I didn't have this fire, I wish I could stop myself from burning everything I touch, but I _do_ and I _can't_ , and they'll kill me for it-"

"Kai, _no_ ," Miss Lin interrupted. "Officer Hou is one policeman in one small town. If he really tries to hurt you, I will take this case to the court in Ninjago City."

"But all the damage I do," Kai said, and tears slipped down his face at last as his body shook with the force of a sob he could no longer repress. "They'll only see me for the fire. I'm a monster."

"You are _not_ a monster," Miss Lin snapped. "Those men are the monsters, for treating you this way."

The sink in the kitchen squealed loudly as the faucet was twisted off. Kai hurriedly wiped his face with his sleeves. Nya could never see him cry. Miss Lin sighed as Nya reentered the room, a glass of water in hand. Nya knelt down beside Kai, offering him the glass. Kai accepted it with a forced smile.

Nya was such a good, talented girl. Smart as a whip, with the wonderful skill of being able to pick up anything she tried her hand at. She was better than Kai, and he _wanted_ her to be. And on top of all of that, she didn't eventually destroy everything she came into contact with. Not like he did.

"You'll be fine," Miss Lin said, and she reached out and brushed Kai's messy bangs out of his face, gently touching his bruised eye. He winced a bit. "You'll protect each other, won't you?"

"I'll never let anybody hurt my brother, if I have anything to say about it," Nya said decisively, a grin on her face.

"Same for you, squirt," Kai teased, and Nya spluttered in offense. Miss Lin smiled at the two of them.

"Hey, I know. Why don't the two of you go to the Four Weapons?" Miss Lin suggested.

Kai brightened a bit. Their parents had been declared dead a few years after they vanished, but their will didn't allow for their property to be sold. It was officially placed in Kai's care, and in his legal guardian's care until he was eighteen. Kai and Nya had looked at the sprawling home built around the forge, had explored it even, and imagined living in it as soon as Kai was old enough. Right now, it sat empty, but Miss Lin took them to clean it every few weeks.

"Can I light the forge?" Kai asked.

"No," Miss Lin said. "But you can pretend to."

"Aw come on, I'm not a little kid anymore!" Kai protested, making Nya laugh, and Miss Lin smiled more genuinely. Kai grinned.

Here were the people that mattered the most to Kai. Miss Lin and Nya, the only two people who had ever had his back. He would fight for them at the drop of a hat. He would die for them.

In the summer, school kids in Ignacia were given extra class credits for helping out in the rice paddies. The other kids didn't like to work with Kai though, so he ended up working on the emptier rice paddies, pretty far from the others.

The day after that incident, he waded through the paddy between the rows of rice, and bent down when he saw a weed to tug it out. Kai liked working on the paddies. It was why he was one of the students that signed up for the extra credits in the summer. He wasn't very book smart either, so it was a good way to boost his grades.

His feet were fully submerged in the five inches of water that spread all around him. He was alone on this paddy, but if he looked up he could see some classmates in a paddy in the distance, a hundred or so yards away. At least, that's where they'd all been a while ago. He had started to ignore them after a bit, because there was a reason he came out here.

Kai liked to be alone. It may have been circumstance and fear that isolated him, but he preferred being alone to being surrounded by judgement anyhow. He hated how pretty girls like Qian Ah acted friendly to him, until they remembered who he was. He hated how adults always looked at him like he was a problem. He hated how jerks like Hou Tao _talked_ to him. He preferred being alone to all that. It was just _nice_. Being free of judgement.

"Well, well, if it isn't the monster of Ignacia."

Ah. Think of the devil, and he shall appear. Kai straightened up, weed in hand, and dropped it in the basket he was carrying. "Hou Tao."

Hou Tao was a sneering little fellow, shorter than Kai, but he had more power behind his name than _Jiang Kai_ , the son of a disappeared-probably-dead blacksmith and his foreign wife. Hou Tao had been tormenting him and getting away with it all simply because he was a police man's son. Kai wondered how he'd missed him arriving.

"You almost killed me yesterday," Hou Tao exaggerated. Kai narrowed his eyes at him. "You're an out of control _freak_."

"You don't look almost dead to me," Kai stated blandly. Hou Tao scowled.

"Dad says if you burn anything else, you're done for," Hou Tao said casually, and Kai felt a disquieted ripple across his skin. Hou Tao smirked. "He said they'll drown you like a rabid dog."

"That's not gonna happen," Kai said quickly. "It'd be murder. He'd go to prison."

"It's not murder to put down an out of control _beast_ ," Hou Tao snapped. Kai grimaced.

"I'm not a beast," Kai whispered.

"No. A beast is a thing, at least. You're not so clear cut, are you, _freak_?"

Kai felt the boiling in his blood, the heat under his skin. His resolve to try and stick to peaceful resolutions to avoid tempting his inner fire dried up faster than the rice paddy mud in the fall when they were drained. He threw a punch, but Hou Tao ducked and threw himself at Kai's waist.

Flames burst across Kai's arms in his panic, but they were instantly doused as the pair of boys landed in the water of the paddy. Kai's basket of weeds fell somewhere out of reach.

Kai shoved Hou Tao off of him, reversing their positions and throwing another punch. Water splashed everywhere and rice stalks were crushed under the weight of them both.

Hou Tao screamed as he kicked Kai off of him, managing to dig his knee into his side. Kai scrambled to his hands and knees, but Hou Tao kicked him into the water face first. Kai rose up, spluttering, but before he could get the water out of his face, Hou Tao had grabbed his hair and put nearly all his weight on his back.

"You know, people can drown in two inches of water? The rice paddies are pretty deep when you think about it like that," Hou Tao sneered. Kai heard his blood rushing in his ears. He could feel heat in his veins, but he was soaking wet and fire wouldn't come. Hou Tao wasn't even forcing him underwater and yet already Kai felt short of breath.

"St-stop-"

"Stuh-stop!" Hou Tao mocked. "You know, everyone's so scared of you, but you're not anything, really. Scared of a little _water_ , huh, Jiang? What, do you think you'll melt in the rain, too?"

He wasn't scared of _water_. He was scared of _Hou Tao_. But he refused to admit to it, even now as fear threatened to burst open his chest with how hard his heart was pounding.

"I'm not scared of water," Kai insisted weakly.

"You should be," Hou Tao said simply. There wasn't even a threat to the words. He'd said them as simply and casually as one would give advice to an acquaintance. Perhaps that's what caught Kai so by surprise when Hou Tao shoved his face into the paddy and _held him there_.

Kai would have nightmares about this for a long time to come. He would dream that he was being held under for hours and hours, and that his fire would never come. But nightmares are not reality.

In reality, Kai was under for only moments as his heart beat faster, and his breathing was impeded, fire burst across his back, roaring to life and burning several of the unflattened rice stalks.

Hou Tao screamed as his flesh was seared, and Kai burst out gasping for air and coughing out mud and water. Hou Tao writhed in the water, his hands clutched to his now crimson face, and Kai felt dread kill his inner fire like the water had almost killed him.

Drawn by the screaming, the farmers and the other kids were making their way over, all running to see what had happened. Kai froze. They were going to call Officer Hou when they saw what happened. Kai was _so dead_.


End file.
